Organizing Spirit: Pneumatology, Institutions, and Global Imagination

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Contemporary theologians tend to associate the Holy Spirit with the formation of local communities, social movements, and fluid relational networksand not with institutions such as denominations or global church bodies. In this work, Jamie Pitts argues that this pneumatological-sociological picture misses important aspects of the Spirits work.
Pitts draws on a wide range of theological and theoretical resources to depict the Spirit as organizing the complex, dynamic, and relationally entangled structures that constitute creation. Human organizing that seeks to participate in the Spirit can take a variety of analogous structural forms, including formal organizations or institutions. Organizational participation in the Spirit is not a function of an organizations scale, mobility, or relative informality, but rather of its practical orientation toward the Spirits goals of life, solidarity, healing, and inclusive justice. A series of case studies clarifies and extends the implications of the argument in connection to organizing for environmental, gender, sexual, and racial justice. In the final chapter, Pitts addresses the role of a political theology of the organizing Spirit in imagining organizational alternatives to the global neoliberal order.

Reviews

A meaty book that brings the Holy Spirit down to earth with careful attention to concrete environments, historical organizations, and specific circumstancesyet without identifying the Spirit idolatrously with those realities. The book abounds in helpful distinctions and surprising comparisons. * Eugene F. Rogers, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA *
This original and ambitious work asks the novel question of how we might reimagine our institutions through the Spirit. With considerable erudition and a vast range of interdisciplinary sources, Jamie Pitts presents a compelling case for how we might challenge and empower the global church to take on equally global problems. * Peter Dula, Mennonite University, USA *
This is one of the most thought-provoking books Ive encountered in the last decade. It leads me to wonder: Have we underestimated the way in which Gods Spirit can act through institutions What does it mean for us to take seriously the Spirits agency in our imperfect world Highly recommended. * Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, USA *
In a period in which international governance processes such as COP are ineffective and local justice initiatives seem to make little difference, this book is like a breath of fresh air. Pitts provides a wonderfully insightful and nuanced theological account of organisations and institutions: Organizing Spirit is a timely and generative contribution to political theology. * Peter Scott, University of Manchester, UK *

Author Bio

Jamie Pitts is Professor of Anabaptist Studies at Anabaptist Mennonite Seminary, USA. He is also Director of the Institute of Mennonite Studies, and Editor of Anabaptist Witness.